Cyprus attractions: what to see and do in summer

Cyprus’s south coast is at its best up to about mid-June, or autumn – high summer is too torrid for most folks to be comfortable anywhere except in the sea, or well up the mountainside.

Indeed, during warmer months – Cyprus is the Middle East, mind – it’s more pleasant to retreat to a beachside base or the foothills of the Troödos mountain range rising inland from all three towns. Almost everywhere, you’ll find that Cyprus has really pulled its socks up since the millennium, in terms of both cutting-edge accommodation and fine dining.

Cyprus’s most compelling attractions lie a day-trip away – in the Limassol foothills, in the capital Nicosia, or even offshore. Motorways, and most secondary roads, are excellent, and none of the following is more than 2 hours distant from any of the coastal trio.

Summer attractions and day trips in Cyprus

Ancient Kourion (Curium)

Another probable destination for cruise-ship patrons, 11 miles west of Limassol, ancient Kourion is superbly perched on a sheer bluff overlooking the sea. A cataclysmic earthquake AD365 pretty much levelled the city, so excavation/restoration has been focused at ground level – specifically Kourion’s floor mosaics, the finest on the island after those at Paphos.

Wooden catwalks underfoot and enormous plastic roofing or tarpaulins overhead are a sad preservation necessity, but allow an unobstructed view of the inscriptions, geometric patterns and head of Ktisis in the Eustolios house, and elsewhere Odysseus rumbling Achilles disguised as a girl to avoid the Trojan War, plus armoured gladiators in combat.

My hotel pick: The Columbia Beach Resort, set on Pissoúri Bay, 30km west of Limassol, offers comfort without airs and graces and one of the most stunning spas on the island.

Winery tours in the krassohoriá

Three mega-wineries near Limassol’s old, in-town fishing port (KEO, ETKO, & LOEL) are a predictably popular, and convenient, venue for a tour with wine sampling. For a less regimented day out, and access to more refined labels, head for the vine-terraced foothills of Limassol district, where most of the krassohoriá (wine villages) support at least one microwinery.

My hotel pick: Agrovino’s self-catered, old stone houses are set in the listed, stone-built village of Lófou, 16 miles from Limassol, 2,600 ft up.

Painted Troödos churches

The Troödos mountains, rising to nearly 2000m/6500ft north-west of Limassol, shelter a score of exquisite, frescoed late-Byzantine churches. From outside, with their small rectangular plans and steeply pitched roofs to shed snow, they give nothing away; inside is a different matter.

All have variable visiting hours and/or a key-keeper who lives nearby. Most lie on the north slope of the mountains, reached more easily from Nicosia, but three churches are easily accessible from Limassol. Diminutive Ágios Mámas, in the village of Louvarás, has cartoon-ish Life of Christ panels from 1495; Stavrós church, at the edge of Peléndri village, features a complete cycle of the Virgin’s life, painted a century earlier.

More remote, and equally accessible from Larnaca, the Metamórfosi chapel near the top of Palekhóri village is replete with images of lions and rivers in idiosyncratic guises.

Scuba diving at Larnaca

One of the Mediterranean’s premier wreck dives is the Zenobia, which foundered in Larnaca harbour on its 1980 maiden voyage owing to an electronic glitch. Towed away and scuttled at its present location 1,500 yards offshore, it still has 100-plus lorries chained precariously to the decks and a profusion of resident sea life.

With a maximum depth of 140ft, not all of the Zenobia is for beginners; to round out a diving day there are other, shallower shipwrecks, plus reefs and caves, nearby. Dive-In (www.dive-in.com.cy) is a safe, long-established operator in Larnaca and Limassol (at the Four Seasons Hotel).

Festivals and events

Kourion amphitheatre’s annual presentation of a Shakespeare play, by locally based actors, takes place over several days in late June.

Contact 00 357 9999 0535, tickets €20 (£17)

Limassol Wine Festival - August 30 - September 9

The annual Limassol Wine Festival has been running since 1961 and takes place in Limassol's municipal gardens. The festival is accompanied by folkloric music and dance events and the small entrance fee includes unlimited sampling of wines from the island's major cooperatives as well as many independent producers.

My hotel pick: The Kapetanios Odyssia is a well-run mid-range hotel that offers the best value in the centre of Limassol.

Paradise Jazz Festival - late July to early August

At the lovely if remote Paradise Place bar-bistro at Pomos, on the north coast, two successive weekends in late July and early August sees the annual Paradise Jazz Festival, now in its fourteenth year, with both Cypriot and overseas musicians.

The 15th annual Paphos Aphrodite Festival offers three performances by Opera Futura Verona and the Cyprus Philharmonic of Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir d’Amore, in and around the diminutive harbour castle.